The 15th Amendment, ratified on February 3, 1870, is the constitutional amendment that gave African Americans the right to vote. Its text prohibits the federal government and every state from denying or abridging the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.1National Archives. 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Voting Rights (1870) That single amendment is the direct answer, but it sits inside a small cluster of amendments and laws that together determine what Black voting rights actually look like in practice.
What the 15th Amendment Says
Congress passed the 15th Amendment on February 26, 1869, and the states ratified it on February 3, 1870. The National Archives describes it as appearing at the time to “signify the fulfillment of all promises to African Americans” — freed by the 13th Amendment, granted citizenship by the 14th, and given the ballot by the 15th.1National Archives. 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Voting Rights (1870)
Two features of the text matter. First, the amendment covers every election — presidential, congressional, state, and local.2Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Fifteenth Amendment Second, it forbids not only outright denial of the vote but also its “abridgement.” That word is deliberate. Partial restrictions and indirect barriers count as violations. A state cannot make voting technically available while making it practically impossible for Black citizens and then claim compliance.
Section 2 of the amendment gives Congress the power to enforce these protections through legislation.3Legal Information Institute. U.S. Constitution Annotated – State Action Doctrine and Enforcement Clause That enforcement clause is what later authorized the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and every other federal voting rights statute.
The 14th Amendment Came First
The 15th Amendment could not have functioned on its own. It presupposed that Black Americans were citizens, and that question had been legally contested. The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, settled it. Section 1 declares that everyone born or naturalized in the United States is a citizen of the nation and of their home state, overturning the Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision, which had held that Black people could never be citizens.4Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Fourteenth Amendment
Section 2 of the 14th Amendment took an indirect swipe at voting rights. It said that if a state denied the vote to any male citizen over twenty-one, that state’s representation in Congress would be reduced proportionally.4Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Fourteenth Amendment The penalty was never enforced, but the provision set up the more direct guarantee that followed two years later.
Section 2 also carved out an exception for people who had participated in “rebellion, or other crime.” That phrase became the constitutional basis for felony disenfranchisement, which still shapes Black voting access today.
Why the 15th Amendment Wasn’t Enough on Its Own
For nearly a hundred years after ratification, the 15th Amendment’s promise went largely unfulfilled. States that were determined to keep Black citizens from the polls designed barriers that looked race-neutral on paper but worked as exclusion in practice.
Literacy tests were administered subjectively. White registrars passed white applicants who gave incomplete answers and failed Black applicants for trivial errors. To keep illiterate white voters eligible, several states added “grandfather clauses” that exempted anyone whose ancestors could vote before 1866 or 1867, dates chosen because they preceded the 15th Amendment. The Supreme Court struck those clauses down in Guinn v. United States (1915), but the literacy tests themselves survived until Congress suspended them nationwide through the Voting Rights Act of 1965.5Congress.gov. Fifteenth Amendment – Exclusion from Primaries and Literacy Tests
Poll taxes were the most widespread barrier. States charged a fee to vote, sometimes requiring payment months ahead of an election or proof of payment stretching back years. The amounts were small in absolute terms but calibrated to exclude sharecroppers and low-income Black citizens who could not afford anything on top of survival. Poll taxes were so entrenched that dismantling them eventually required a separate amendment.
The 24th Amendment: Ending Poll Taxes
Ratified on January 23, 1964, the 24th Amendment specifically bans poll taxes in federal elections. It prohibits the federal government and every state from conditioning the right to vote in presidential, vice-presidential, or congressional elections on payment of a poll tax or any other tax.6Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum. Constitutional Amendments – Amendment 24 – Elimination of Poll Taxes
By its text, the amendment reaches only federal contests. That gap closed two years later when the Supreme Court decided Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections (1966) and ruled that conditioning the right to vote on payment of any fee violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.7Justia. Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, 383 U.S. 663 (1966) Together, the 24th Amendment and Harper eliminated poll taxes at every level of government.
The 19th Amendment and Black Women
The 15th Amendment addressed race. It said nothing about sex. Before 1920, most states barred women from voting entirely, and the Supreme Court had reinforced that in Minor v. Happersett (1875), holding that citizenship did not automatically carry the right to vote.
The 19th Amendment, ratified on August 18, 1920, prohibits denying or restricting the right to vote based on sex.8Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Nineteenth Amendment For Black women, the 15th and 19th Amendments create overlapping protection: a restriction can be challenged as racial, as sex-based, or as both. In practice, the same evasion tactics that suppressed Black men’s votes applied equally to Black women, and full ballot access for most Black women in the South did not arrive until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965
Constitutional amendments are prohibitions. They tell governments what they cannot do. Without legislation to enforce them, a determined state can suppress votes in ways that are technically distinct from what an amendment forbids. That is why the 15th Amendment sat largely dormant for almost a century.
Using the enforcement power written into the 15th Amendment, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.9National Archives. Voting Rights Act (1965) Section 2 of the Act prohibits any voting qualification, standard, or procedure that results in racial discrimination. A plaintiff does not have to prove lawmakers intended to discriminate — only that the practice produces discriminatory results under the totality of circumstances.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 52 USC 10301 – Denial or Abridgement of Right to Vote on Account of Race or Color
Section 5 required states and localities with a documented history of discrimination to get federal approval — known as preclearance — before changing their election laws. Covered jurisdictions had to submit proposed changes to the Department of Justice or file suit in a federal court in Washington, D.C., and prove the changes would not harm minority voters.11United States Department of Justice. About Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act This shifted the burden: instead of Black voters filing costly lawsuits after a discriminatory law took effect, the jurisdiction had to prove fairness before the change went into force.
Where These Protections Stand Today
The amendments themselves have not changed. What has changed is how strongly they are enforced. In Shelby County v. Holder (2013), the Supreme Court struck down the formula Congress used to identify jurisdictions covered by preclearance, ruling that it relied on decades-old data. Chief Justice Roberts wrote that “coverage today is based on decades-old data and eradicated practices” and that Congress cannot “rely simply on the past” when singling out states for different treatment.12Justia. Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013) Section 5 remains on the books but is inoperable without a valid coverage formula, and Congress has not enacted a new one.11United States Department of Justice. About Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act
One boundary is worth naming because it surprises people. The 15th Amendment does not protect the voting rights of people convicted of felonies. The 14th Amendment’s Section 2 carve-out for “participation in rebellion, or other crime” permits states to strip voting rights on that basis, and the Supreme Court confirmed the reading in Richardson v. Ramirez (1974). No federal standard governs when voting rights are restored after a conviction. Each state sets its own rule — some restore rights automatically upon release, some require completion of parole or probation, and a few allow permanent disenfranchisement absent individual clemency. Because African Americans are incarcerated at disproportionate rates, these state-by-state rules continue to shape Black political participation.
On the enforcement side, the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division houses a Voting Section that investigates potential violations, brings suits against jurisdictions that restrict voting rights, and monitors compliance with federal election laws.13United States Department of Justice. Voting Section The 15th Amendment answered the constitutional question in 1870. The work of making that answer real has continued ever since.